


Night Runners

by omnical (general_mustachio)



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Altered Carbon Fusion, Alternate Universe - Blade Runner Fusion, Cyberpunk AU, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Romance, a liiitle bit of shadowrun, i mean this story's version of an envoy anyway, she's basically a cyberpunk ninja, yang is an android blake is an envoy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:40:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23443375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/general_mustachio/pseuds/omnical
Summary: "Do you even sleep?""Yeah. I dream of electric sheep."
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 14
Kudos: 62





	1. Welcome to the Machine

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own anything! I just love the genre.

Yang was lucky it wasn’t raining.

Dangling high above street level, her arms strained as her fingers clutched the edge of the Sukeban building rooftop.

She began to pull herself up with one arm, her free hand reaching the lip of the parapet as she hoisted herself to safety. Carefully, she used her feet as leverage against the steel frame supporting the building's high rise windows, and balanced herself on the edge.

Cold wind jostled her long hair, whipping blonde curls into tangles as she turned around and faced the open sky extending towards the distorted horizon. 

Yang kept completely still as she listened. As she waited. Focusing on the sound of whirring rotors, of screaming sirens. Eyes straining for any sign of optic headlights searching for life signatures.

_Nothing._

Yang turned towards the rooftop, eyes darting feverishly. “Ruby…?”

“I’m here.”

Yang felt a burst of air escape her at the sound of her sister’s voice. She leapt over the parapet wall with an agile spring to her step, focusing on the colour red of Ruby’s jacket as she searched the roof. It didn’t take her long to find Ruby lying flat on the ground behind a whistling steel vent, panting, her face flushed, and her short hair matted over her sweaty forehead.

“Yo.”

Yang fell to her knees beside her. Her hands hovered the girl's inert body, hesitating in case she jostled injuries, before curling them against her thighs. “What in the hell were you thinking, Ruby Rose?”

“Can’t talk.” Ruby wheezed. “Need air.”

“You’re damn lucky I found out what you were up to.” Yang said. “I managed to scramble their cams before they caught your face on trid, Rubes. What if I didn’t arrive on time, huh?” 

Ruby wove a dismissive hand. “I could’ve handled it.”

"You could've handled getting chased across the city by ten Ravagers?"

"Yeah."

Yang dragged a hand down her face with a furious groan, her mind flitting through the many ways their night could have ended terribly. “The owner of that chop shop’s gonna be looking for us.” 

“It’s Sleet Labs, Yang, don't call it a chop shop.” Ruby muttered. “They deserve it, anyway.”

“It’s a still glorified chop shop, and we’ll talk about your poor sense of self-preservation later.” Yang said. “Please answer my dumb question, Ruby.”

Ruby smacked the asphalt with her hands and sat up with a grunt. “You _needed_ it.” She said. “I can’t just sit by and watch you get worse. What if your arm stops working?”

“I’d rather have a malfunctioning arm than see you in prison.” Despite her anger, Yang caved in and wrapped her sister in a hug, swallowing the smaller girl’s frame. It allowed them a moment’s reprieve as she rocked her sister side to side, comforted by the fact that they escaped.

“Promise me you won’t do it again?”

She listened to Ruby breathe, her hands curling around Yang’s elbow. “You can’t tell me to stop helping you.”

“Dammit, Ruby.” Her words didn't even have any bite anymore, too drained to muster anything more than a sigh.

Shaking her head, Yang decided to save this conversation for later. Probably when they were no longer in danger of being caught.

It wasn’t difficult outrunning a couple of Ravager tek drones in a chase. Their taser bullets were slow enough that someone as nimble and fit as Yang could avoid one or two successive shots. The true danger came from how loud they sang, and usually the city’s districts were rife with NAPD patrols rounding every miserable crevice of Neo-Anima. 

But downtown Higanbana was a no-fly zone. The presence of ruling gangs around this particular district were affluent enough to stack dirty cops' credsticks with six-digit numbers to keep NAPD patrols at bay. 

“C’mon,” Yang stood and pulled Ruby up, dusting her pants trousers. “We gotta get outta here before they send in more Ravagers.”

They made their way to the rusty scaffolding, which rose from the side of the building like oversized pythons, ladders old enough that they creaked and swung precariously. By the time they reached the ground, they were out of there. Out over the chain fence that had a defaced ‘No Trespassing’ sign, and down an underpass covered with eclectic graffiti art and poor lighting.

Yang liked to think she intentionally led their drone pursuers to Higanbana, to help keep NAPD patrols off their tails, but the unfortunate truth was that they were lucky. Lucky they found the MTR shortcut, heading to the outskirts of Higanbana. Lucky they came across a forgotten construction site with half its framework still intact, its hanging girders stretched out long enough to keep them running. Lucky that Ruby managed to find and cut a stack of wire cables holding a concrete slab from above, losing half their pursuers in the resulting chaos. 

There were so many ways their night could have gone sideways. Luck, Yang thought, might not be on their side the next time they got in trouble.

They ended up getting rained on half an hour away from home, walking hand in hand as they beat dirty pavement on foot. 

Arched neon pixel lights towered above them, dancing around 24/7 shops, along with holo-boards endorsing the latest Hi Teks from Schnee Industries. Beauty ad spires projected fifteen feet trids of perfect, unblemished bodies in skimpy clothing like flawless dieties.

There was a wilderness at night. Alive and pulsing with the rhythm of the city. The uneven pavement dragging under the heels of their shoes, the sweat on their skin from humid air, the broken music from street buskers begging for change. Acid rain fell from the weeping sky, filling their ears with a sound much like television audio static, while the wet streets mirrored city lights, its reflections warped and glittering like breaking glass. The air smelled like sharp ozone, exhaust smog from city traffic stinging their eyes, while fishball stands and ramen shops sizzled and steamed by the roadside. 

Yang wondered if they should stop for dumplings, but thought better than to risk getting caught.

_Keep walking, Xiao Long._

They crossed busy street intersections and brushed shoulders with the night freaks, swiftly disappearing amongst the crowd, and passed through slums with houses made of perforated sheets and ripped metal flapping in the wind.

It wasn't too long until they passed the roundabout streets in fifth avenue, ducking behind parked cars whenever night patrol headlights passed them by. Ruby, with her head tucked under her jacket’s hood. Yang, with her long hair tucked inside her coat, her collar flipped up to warm her windswept cheeks.

By the time they reached the outskirts of Vale City, their heads were already pounding from the everchanging blaze of the skyline.

Their home was a poorly retrofitted building, named presumably after endless renovations done by several landlords throughout the years. It stood squat between an antiques store and a C-grade noodle house. This was, as far as Ruby and Yang knew, their only safehaven ever since they moved to Vale two years ago.

Tek junkies, sim addicts looking for a short term stay, and displaced squatters from the Sprawl found their home in Patch Apartments. Yang liked how nobody asked too many questions. 

There were people crowding the halls, even at this hour, sitting on the winding stairway, while others drifted along the corridors like fireflies searching for an exit. Ruby and Yang made their way up the dilapidated stairs slowly, their feet aching and their minds seeking respite. Some apartment doors were wide open, revealing large families packed together in small rooms. Children waved as the sisters passed by, followed by a motley of different languages, greeting their ears. They greeted back, too tired to strike conversation with neighbours. 

Gran Maria's closed apartment door was a ruse. The old woman caught them out this late at night and gave them a scolding, which passed through one ear and out the other. But they left her floor carrying a serving bowl of hot paella in a plastic bag. For dinner, she said. Yang promised to fix her kitchen plumbing tomorrow morning.

Upon reaching their apartment, Yang unlocked the door to their room with a key from her jacket’s hidden pocket. She wiggled the doorknob twice, before shoving the door with her shoulder. 

Yang let Ruby in first, her eyes scanning the hallway for any sign of glowing red optics.

Safe.

* * *

The chair creaked under Yang’s weight. 

She stared warily at Ruby’s overwhelming variety of tools, lined up immaculately like sharp surgical instruments, her eyes especially drawn to the newest member of her collection. It was a Y4-Sin key, its needle-like pronged tips terrifying despite its size. The object was small, smaller than a human pinky, but probably more expensive than a trip to the Aerium. Pre-Polendina cybernetic components only ever responded to the key. As far as they knew, the microscopic grooves dotting the needle shafts were impossible to replicate.

_A fossil from the past._

Yang bit the insides of her cheek and pulled up her sleeve. She stretched her right arm out over the table in front of Ruby, palm facing up. "We are not done talking about this, by the way.” She said.

Ruby slid on a pair of oversized magnifying goggles and began to prod at the skin of her forearm, lips pursed in concentration as her eyes - zeroed-in and focused - seemed to look straight through her. “Talk about what?”

“I want you to tell me that you'll never do that again, Ruby.”

“Do what again?”

Yang winced when Ruby jabbed the key pin in her wrist, probably harder than necessary. Her arm twitched. Unseen cybernetic modules clicked and whined mechanically, and soon her synthetic flesh split apart and opened from wrist to forearm, revealing wiring components underneath. She heard Ruby gasp, the younger girl wiggling in place with barely concealed glee. 

“It worked!”

“Ruby.”

“Not right now, Yang. I’m in the zone.” She said, ignoring Yang’s frustrated sigh. “Just stay still until I figure out what’s wrong.”

“We really need to talk.”

“So talk.”

“Rubes, this is serious. You just stole fifty-thousand creds worth of equipment -- ”

“Which is ridiculous, by the way. What’s this thing made out of, aluminum?”

“You stole the key without telling me!” Yang spluttered. “And hey, while we're at it, why don't we talk about that other thing -- ”

“What other thing?”

“About how you skipped school. No - _dropped out_ of school by telling the teacher to eat his iPad?”

“It was pretty funny.”

“And you didn’t bother to tell me any of this.” Yang released a strangled noise. “I mean, what am I, just chopped liver right?”

“I didn’t tell you because I knew you were gonna freak out.” Ruby sat back and fixed Yang with a tired expression, the lenses of her magnifier goggles comically enlarging the look of resignation on her face. “Like how you’re freaking out right now.”

“Can you blame me? You almost got arrested because of me.”

“But I didn’t. I’m here, you’re here, we’re fine. So if you could just move your arm this way, you big jerk.”

“... Like this?”

“Yeah.”

Yang fell silent as Ruby began to alternate tools, her expert fingers summoning the right instruments every time without even looking. She pulled aside a ball of tangled wiring and circuitry from the partition of her arm, revealing the skeletal core, its yellow glow flushing Ruby’s face in warm light. 

“God, what a mess.” 

Yang felt a slight tug in her arm. Her fingers began to jerk awkwardly in response.

"Um, Rubes?"

“Got it.” Ruby said. “Almost done.”

Yang’s legs began to bounce, her free hand fidgeting around the edge of her lengthy sleeve. “I could’ve helped out, y’know. Helped you steal that from Sleet.” She said. “I promised dad I’d look out for you, Ruby.”

“From what I remember, _we_ did, Yang.” Ruby grabbed the welder and stuck it in the partition, shoving the hot tip through the wires. “We promised him we’d look out for each other. Your arm’s been fragged for months, and judging by what’s inside, sister, the whole thing’s a mess.”

“My arm’s not that bad.” She said. “Didn’t get me fired or anything.”

“Yet.”

“I’d like to see Cordovin try.”

“We are talking about your cranky boss who called you last week, right?" Ruby asked, speaking above the sparks and hiss of the welder. "The one who threatened to fire you because you ruined her uniform with black dust, that same lady?”

“Who cares about Cordovin?" She said. "You gotta warn me when you’re planning to steal something from a mega corporation. I won’t stop you.”

“Really?” Ruby scoffed in disbelief. “You won’t try to stop me?”

"Like it or not, you’re not alone in this, Rubes.”

“What about you?” 

Yang opened, then closed her mouth when she realized she couldn’t say anything. “What about me?”

“You’re not alone, too.” Ruby looked up and shoved her goggles over her forehead. “You shut me out first.”

Yang moved to cross her arms over her chest, stopping when she realized she couldn’t. “But -- ”

“You don’t understand. You never did.” Yang winced when Ruby removed a wire inside with a violent tug. “I tried to help you. I could have asked my new friend about dad's research, but no, it was ‘too dangerous’. Even when I told you I rig in with a fake avatar whenever I talk to her.”

“Can you blame me?” She asked. “You were talking to a _Schnee._ ”

“Why didn’t you trust that I could’ve handled it?” Ruby pushed her goggles back down.

Yang shook her head and slouched in her seat, bouncing her leg until Ruby sent her a dirty look.

The sisters fell silent again, the sound of the city outside the only thing piercing their private bubble. 

Ruby pulled a sparking black wire out of the tangled mess of cords, tugging it off until the other end disconnected from its circuit breaker. Yang felt her arm twitch and go limp. After a few more tweaks, her limb jolted back to life, almost smacking the pliers out of Ruby's hand, her muscles seizing as she felt an electric shock run through synthetic fibres like white noise. She sighed when the uncomfortable feeling subsided.

"There."

Once Ruby released her arm, Yang examined the fixed limb, running her thumb over smooth flesh where the partition had opened. She flexed her fingers experimentally, and rotated her wrist. _Good as new._

“I’m not eleven anymore, Yang.” Ruby shrugged, pulling off her bulky eyewear, ruffling wet black hair. “You don’t have to be alone in this. We can search for dad together.”

“Yeah.” Yang grinned, shaking her head as she grasped Ruby’s hand. “Man, where did that kid go?” She couldn’t seem to keep the pride from her voice, but at the same time didn’t bother to hide it. “Fine," She said. "I’ll let you help out.”

Ruby’s eyes shone. “Of course you will.”

“And you promise you won’t keep me in the dark anymore?”

“Promise,” She smirked. “Unless you do something to piss me off.”

“Smartass.” Yang laughed. “You’re amazing, y’know that?”

The proud smile on Ruby’s face reminded her of Summer. “I know.”

Yang slipped her sleeve down her fixed arm. The annoying twinge was gone, her right wrist no longer plagued by occasional tremors and shocks. Despite all the trouble they went through tonight, Yang felt relief for the first time in almost a year.

“Thanks, Ruby.”

Before she could fully stand, however, Ruby held out a halting hand, keeping Yang from leaving her seat. She looked at Ruby, confused, and noticed her shame-faced, quiet change of demeanor. The change in atmosphere made Yang fret in her seat. “There's something else I wanna do.” Ruby looked away, tightening her lips into a thin straight line. 

"Hey, if this is about your secret food stash under the floor, I didn't take it." Yang said, weakly chuckling in a poor attempt to lighten the mood.

"Yang, I _know_.”

She fell silent as she stared at a spot on the wall behind Ruby’s head. 

Ruby leaned forward, her voice small. “Yang?”

“It’s fine.” Yang felt her teeth click shut as she forced on a smile, looking more like a grimace. “I’m fine. I’m okay. You caught me off guard, that’s all.”

Ruby kept quiet, looking away, awkwardly fiddling with the handles of her tool. 

“I should’ve guessed this was the reason you stole it, huh?” Yang said, after a long, uncomfortable silence between the two sisters. Her laugh sounded hollow. “I wasn't even... I can’t hide anything from you, can I?”

“You didn’t really hide it very well.” Ruby said, finally looking up at her, disappointment apparent on her face. “Your voice malfunctions when it happens.”

“Yeah.”

"Hey," Ruby straightened her back and leaned forward, eyes hardening until Yang fancied she could steal some of her sister’s confidence for herself. “I won't give up until I find a way to fix you.” 

“I know.”

Ruby immediately deflated at Yang's cursory response. “You’re not mad at me, are you?” She asked, flinching. “Talk to me, please?”

“I’m not mad.” Yang closed her eyes, and slowly exhaled. “Never. I’m just --” She laughed again. “It’s just that I forgot I…”

Yang looked down, her eyes focusing on her lap. On her newly fixed hand.

"Do you remember how?”

Yang nodded. 

She turned around and shakily took her shirt off, tugging it over her head while Ruby helped by twisting her long, damp hair over her shoulders.

Ruby hesitated. She pressed the tips of her fingers down the back of Yang's head, and took time searching for the barest hint of a port under her skin. Then, upon finding the small suggestion of a lump on the base of Yang's neck, she slid in the Y4 pin’s needles with a gentle push through flesh.

The change was slow. Gradual. Like the shifting of tectonic plates, made of silver chrome and synthetic skin, sliding over and under each other. Sections of Yang’s human musculature retreated, gradually revealing the complex machinery underneath.

The yellow dust glowing in her core caught Ruby's attention first, assembled like a misshapen sphere of pure energy in a four-ventricle casing. From there, several suppression units pulsed with a golden light.

Raven Branwen might have been a cruel creator, but she was nothing if not efficient when it came to designing her first replicants. She wanted her creations to be as similar to human flesh as possible, both inside and outside. A reflection of the mind that birthed Yang. An egotistical statement to the world. There was a reason why the Y4-N6 model replicants looked like the dark-haired woman in the newspapers. Her motor sensors even looked like a modified human spine, curved with vertebrae-like partitions lined up in a perfect row.

Ruby watched each stack fire binary to Yang’s brain like electric currents running up a thin thread, each neuro-current blinking almost as fast as light. The stacks slid out one by one as her hand hovered over them, the OS interface still thankfully working. She immediately felt nauseous the longer she spent examining Yang's internal 'organs', and wondered if this was what people felt like after seeing someone’s insides for the first time.

“Is this…” Yang felt her question die in her throat before she could fully form it. Her voice had changed, stripped alongside her human appearance. She sounded more like a lo tek voice generator with emotion. “How is it?"

“It’s been six years since dad’s manual diagnosis, Yang.” Ruby chuckled, trying to hide a watery sniffle. She cleared her throat. “You need some parts replaced, but I think I can fix your blackouts.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s a miracle, y’know.” Ruby said. “I think it’s a miracle that you’ve lived this long.”

Yang stared out the window as Ruby worked, lights filtering through their window from the streetside.

“I think...” Yang said, watching half their living room turn blue… pink… lavender…

There was a bitterness at the pit of her stomach, rising like bile up her throat. She could feel Ruby's fingers work her functioning composites. Each sensation numbed, like sensing touch under a cold steel sheet. No pain. Nothing that told her she was breaking down. That her time was up.

“I think," Yang said. "I don’t believe in miracles anymore, Ruby.”

* * *

_ "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.  _

_ Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.  _

_ I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.  _

_ All those moments will be lost in time,  _

_Like tears in rain."_ **  
**


	2. 4 AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blake hunts. Blake meets a ghost of her past. Blake has to make a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit closer to Altered Carbon now! I'll be converging Blake and Yang's worlds soon enough :)
> 
> I really must thank [TophsLegacy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TophsLegacy/pseuds/TophsLegacy) for their amazing help and support while writing this :D They're a huge reason why this is continuing at all.
> 
> Here's a list of terms for your convenience!
> 
> Cortical Stacks - Commonly referred to simply as stacks, these are disks inserted in the back of the neck that house the human consciousness.  
> Sleeve - Another word for a human body and what you insert a stack into. The body you're born in is called a birth sleeve.  
> Dipper - Hackers, essentially. A dipper specializes in getting information from stacks, which can mean extracting memories or inserting new information into the stack.  
> Needlecast - Transferring human consciousness remotely from one sleeve to another (or to another receiver).  
> ONI - Stands for Online Network Interface. A mini-computer installed in a person's eye which allows them to make and receive calls, record and transmit video, and look up information.

Blake ran her tongue over her bloody teeth and smiled.

The cafe was far from a five-star illustrious establishment, but she could recognize sim junkie territory just from the sight of its carbon steel garbage. They were machine parts from old memory tech, scattered around the lobby in precarious heaps, the air stuffed with tendrils of tobacco smoke mixed with old wallpaper smell, and she had to squeeze her way through the room’s cramped space to reach the front of the kiosk.

The flashing sign above the desk spelled ‘VR SimCafe’ in a cursive neon script, which shrouded her in an obnoxious contest of electric lights. Her placid smile held, frozen in place as the soles of her shoes squeaked on the tacky linoleum floor while shifting her feet. The man behind the kiosk barely twitched.

“Hi.” She leaned against the desk, gripping the edge of the counter, the sleeves of her leather jacket sticking against its grimy surface like fly paper on skin. “Sorry, I was wondering if you can help me?” 

The owner of the cafe looked up from behind the console screen with a grunt, and peered at her from above the monitor. After doing a double take, his surly expression changed to a smile. “A new customer!” He crooned, pushing the blinking console away. “How can I be of assistance, lovely? My name is Xiong Hei, but my friends all call me Junior.” He leaned forward against the desk. A bit too close for comfort. Blake’s lips wavered as she shifted and tugged at her jacket, hoping the blood on her shirt wasn’t too obvious. 

“Welcome to the best VR Cafe in all of Latimer.” 

Xiong Hei gestured behind him, towards shelves of containers arranged in messy rows, all filled with hundreds of plastic memory fragments shaped like circular blue disks. Blake glanced at them, wrinkling her nose as she read taped up labels which ranged from ‘Simple Pleasures’, to ‘Before Death’ snuff memories. 

Why anyone would choose to experience someone’s death was beyond her.

“What’s your poison tonight, lovely?” He asked. “Vacation in Madagascar? Maybe a hot and personal bubble bath if you’re feeling raunchy tonight... ?” 

“I was just wondering if you saw my friend.” Blake turned her attention back to Xiong, her sweet smile causing the man to flush red. 

He perked up in full attention, black glasses reflecting the streaming data log from his monitor at this angle. “Do tell?”

“She’s about this high, cropped hair, blue eyes?” Blake shakily ran a hand through wet hair, shrugging. “We kinda… lost each other in Lan Guozi. Silly me.”

“Guozi?” His eyeybrows arched above the frame of his glasses. “Not a safe place for a lovely woman like yourself.”

Blake’s eyes narrowed. “I’m sure Guozi can handle me just fine.” 

He chuckled. “Give me a moment to check my cams, lovely.” 

Xiong lifted his forearm and twisted a silver bracelet around his wrist, thumb grazing over a button to activate his personal ONI. There was a flash of white behind his dark glasses, and he began to interact with his ONI’s hud interface with sweeping hand gestures mid-air. He took a moment to watch a cam recording she couldn’t see. 

For a VRCafe owner, Blake didn’t expect him to own a private network and security system.

He turned to face her with a smile that showed too much teeth. “Yes,” He said, “Passed through here five minutes ago.”

“That’s great.” Blake said, feeling tension roll from her shoulders. _I didn’t miss her._ “Look, Junior -- can I call you Junior? -- you wouldn’t mind if I looked around here, would you?” She asked. Blake tilted her head just so, revealing the curve of her neck, her brown hair fanning over her shoulder as she matched his pose and leaned forward. “I would appreciate it so much if you let me.” Their eyes met across the kiosk as she drew close, close enough that she could feel his pungent breath on her face, stinking of dry gin. 

She didn’t miss the dark expression pass over his face.

“Depends, lovely. Are you gonna make it worth my while?”

Blake had to stop herself from making a face. 

“Depends.” 

Xiong grinned, but froze before he could reply back, his expression shifting from interested to neutral. 

Her face records probably just trickled into his ONI’s private network. 

_Well, shit._

She didn’t know if she wanted to be relieved or disappointed.

“Y’know, I would love to take you up on that offer, but bounty hunters aren’t allowed in my cafe.” With faux sincerity, he nodded behind her, gesturing towards the door leading back into the streets. “Better run back to your Happy Huntresses, black cat. You won’t get anything from me.”

Blake sighed and glanced at the exit, partially covered by the machine garbage ltitering the place. Her shoulders fell. “Maybe you can make an exception for me?” 

“No can do.”

A tense beat. Blake turned to look at him again, her eyes narrowed into two dangerous slits like a viper’s dripping fangs. “So I was right.” She hummed. “We have a Harlem soul trader protected by a man renting stolen memory fragments.” Blake watched him squirm. “That’s interesting.” 

“I got no idea what you’re talkin’ about.” Xiong’s hands began to move underneath the counter. As if she wouldn’t notice his meaty arm reaching to grab something out of sight. She almost felt insulted, and if she didn’t think he was already an idiot, she would have punched him. “It’s a smart business venture.”

“And illegal.” Blake tapped her finger idly on the counter. “Are you protected by the Mizumoto clan, Junior?”

He pulled out his pistol in response, pointing the business end between her eyes. 

Blake took a cautious step back and held her hands over her head. She took a cursory glance at the entrance to the VR dens behind him and sighed. “Guess that’s a no.”

Thyme created a malware that can worm its way into anything, as long as there was a doorway. 

One of the best doorways happened to be something as simple as intimate eye contact. 

A term Joanne liked to call ‘dirty tek eye-fucking’, but Blake was not that obscene. It was a wireless connection, ONI to ONI, where the only interception was building personal trust. Blake wasn’t much of a hacker like Thyme, but she knew how to play the game, opening the proverbial pandora’s box in someone’s private network with just a look. Blake wasn’t much of a talker, but she sure as hell had a _look_.

She watched all hell break loose. A light behind Xiong’s black lenses flashed, and he screamed bloody murder once blinding data visuals began to flash through his brain. Audio from past security recordings conglomerating into a cacophony which pierced his brain, along with a sea of endless sensory information. An ONI could be a terrible thing.

Blake swung her fist and silenced him by clocking him in the head. Her knuckles landed on his face like a brick, and she heard a crack and thump as his back hit the shelves. He fell behind the counter, bringing a few plastic containers down along with him. 

She huffed, satisfied, then looked around the lobby for stragglers who might have witnessed her man-handling the owner.

Still empty.

Blake swayed at her feet, groaning as she pressed a hand over the stab wound in her side, blood sticking like glue against her precious jacket. This body -- this sleeve, might have superior healing, but Vernal stabbed her deep and left the damn blade in. 

Blake shook her head, and steeled herself when her world began to turn. 

Despite the cold pit in her stomach, she briskly entered the kiosk and disappeared behind the entrance to the VR dens. 

* * *

Recessed lights blazed hot from the ceiling, shrouding the hallway with bright red like a warning sign. 

Blake moved quietly, following the row of VR booths, each accommodating customers who sat lifelessly on stiff couches behind frosted glass. 

She watched them as she passed by each booth, every customer wearing bulky visors strapped around their heads. Colored wires ciriss-crossed into messy knots, surrounding them, connected to a memory machine’s playback interface and dust RC jacks from the ceiling. Behind their visors were lucid dreaming injected straight into their cortex, streamed from rented memory fragments for fifty lien an hour. Some were talking out loud into empty air, hands moving for something -- or someone -- that wasn’t there. Others were screaming, but Blake didn’t hang around those rooms long enough to find out why.

The noises from the sim junkies were mercifully drowned out by the synth wave music playing along the walls, loud enough to make the floor under her feet pulsate with its bass rhythm. Electro house wasn’t her jam, but in this case, she approved it.

It wasn’t as if Blake hated VR. 

Blake just didn’t understand why people would leave their bodies vulnerable for hours on end, living a stranger’s past as if they hated being in their own skin. But she couldn’t hate victimized people hooked on sims. Watching the less than savoury regulars of the VR Cafe made Blake pity them, seeing their bodies withered to skin and bone, the sloppy mishmash of their attire reflecting the common masses of poorer Vytal City, bleeding their money dry for memory fragment after memory fragment after memory fragment. They leave every session stinking of sweat, high on adrenaline and pleasure, but not much else.

 _We are not like them, Blake_. 

She knew how people were susceptible to losing touch with themselves. Getting lost in their fake needs, like labyrinths leading every path towards self-destruction. 

_They’re lost. All of them, like sheep._ He would say. _It’s up to us to lead them._

They had no direction. No control.

_Someday, we will control the Aerium._

Blake faltered a step. 

She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes, dots flashing underneath her eyelids, relentless and overwhelming. 

_You can’t run away forever, my love._

She was losing too much blood.

Blake almost gave up her chase when the timer in her head reached single digits, until she noticed movement skirt in her periphery. She almost chalked it up to hallucination, but doubted her mind could conjure someone with a terrible haircut darting out of an occupied booth.

She steeled herself and swiftly followed the blur, pulling her hood over her face, and grasping the folded katana hidden inside her jacket. 

The end of the hallway lead to a central waiting room with a circular bar in the middle. Its drinks served by a lone bartender, cocktails glowing like irradiated liquid under a black light. Blake looked around the sizeable crowd, a strange mix of delinquents and wealthy degenerates making up the most of Mr. Junior’s patronage. The cafe certainly looked smaller from the outside.

It didn’t take long for Blake to catch sight of her target within the crowd. She watched Vernal limp between two tables, her own injury hindering her steps. Seeing this, Blake carefully pushed herself between a few drunk customers, stopping when Vernal hunched over in pain.

Blake melded amongst a group of people high on Reaper and Somno, fingers flexing over the pommel of her weapon.

She watched Vernal look around, then, stumbling, ran and disappeared into another hallway.

_Shit._

Cursing her poor luck, Blake hurried to catch up to her, forgoing all attempts to be stealthy as she jostled and pushed people out of her way. The hall Vernal entered was thankfully impossible to get lost in. As soon as Blake reached the end, she found Vernal trying to pry open a door leading to the back of the biulding. Trapped.

Their eyes met, and they regarded each other with tired resignation.

Vernal laughed, struggling to catch her breath as she pressed a hand to her bloodied abdomen. “Is all this trouble really worth ten-thousand lien?”

Blake took a breath as she considered her question. 

She shrugged.

“Yeah.”

Vernal grabbed her pistol from her side holster and fired a shot, but Blake unsheathed her sword just in time and caught the bullet with her blade, sending sparks flying steel against steel. The bullet ricocheted close enough to rip a gash through Blake’s jacket, but not enough to draw blood.

Another gunshot blew the doorlock along with the rest of the jamb. Hissing out a curse, Vernal threw herself against the door and into the alleyway, shoes tracking blood along the tarmac. 

Blake followed and leapt out through the door not a moment too soon, kicking off the frame for momentum. She landed close behind Vernal, who fired another round, but Blake moved her head an inch, allowing her to miss.

_Too close._

Blake dodged another shot while activating a switch on her katana hilt, grabbing a hard light ribbon once it ejected from its pommel. She expertly threw it across, catching a rebar frame sticking from the cafe’s rooftop with a snap. Blake tugged, then propelled herself across the alleyway, landing in front of Vernal before she could fully escape.

“Are you _kidding_ me?”

This wasn’t really an ideal situation. Not for either of them. Too tired to fight, but too stubborn not to see their confrontation through.

Blake readied her blade, the silver reflecting the barrel of Vernal’s gun.

It was just a waiting game to see who would drop first.

  
  


* * *

“I got her.”

“That was fast. Good job, black cat, you’re on a roll.”

“Thanks… and Robyn? Don’t wait up.”

Blake closed the line, her ONI blinking out, flickering until her personal hud interface disappeared from her regular vision.

Too close.

She spent a few more minutes watching the body, now an empty sleeve as it laid a few feet away from where she sat. Blake held Vernal’s cortical stack in her hand and regarded it impassively.

She breathed in deep, relieved, but winced when pain began to shoot from her abdomen in waves. The fight didn’t do her any favors, especially after Vernal landed a mean blow to her gut, which almost took her out of the game prematurely. 

With a groan, Blake pulled herself up and forced herself to stand, shakily supporting her weight against the grimy wall behind her. 

Vernal posed as a hacker for most of her stay here in Vytal, but didn’t do much else to hide her identity. A common mistake, Blake thought, for newcomers who thought Vytal City was neutral ground. It was neutral ground for businesses focusing on the fine arts of paper and negotiation. Sleeve leggers, synth pimps, memory dippers, rich CEO’s, even senators. Cutthroat business tactics were locked out of Vytal thanks to solid corporate laws, tight like a chained leash ready to put people in its choke hold. If corporations needed to make amends, this was the perfect place to be.

The only business that was fair game in Vytal was the bounty hunting business.

Blake approached the sleeve, carefully dropping on her knees with a grunt, and began to rifle through Vernal’s messenger bag. Credsticks, lien, datasticks, and stolen cortical stacks which, judging from the size and version of the stack, was a Pre-Polendina design. She curled her lips and wondered how long these souls were kept ‘asleep’, used as bargaining chips to their grieving families like simple currency. 

“You know what, I take it back.” Blake said, Vernal’s empty sleeve unresponsive in the face of her vitriol. “This was totally worth getting you back on ice… ”

“You’re getting soft, my love.”

Blake almost jumped out of her skin, and scrambled to her feet, wincing when she stood up too fast. She found she couldn’t move at all as she studied the person standing at the end of the alleyway, tall and foreboding and shrouded by Vytal City’s perpetual night. The streetlights blinking behind him revealed a flash of red hair, and Blake felt time stop as the truth dawned on her.

“I’m glad to see you too, Blake.”

“No.” She hated how her voice sounded small. How it shook as if her breath was being strangled out of her. “What are you doing here? How ...?”

“It took me a long time to find you.” He took a step forward, but stopped when Blake raised her bloody katana. The effort made her arm buckle, made her sick from hopelessness. Blake stood her ground. He smirked, cocking his head to the side as he regarded her like an insect trapped in a bottle. 

Blake wasn’t sure if it was courage that kept her from running away, or if she was simply frozen from fear. Her entire body screamed for her to get away, escape as soon as she musters the strength, but her mind knew the odds. 

She was injured. He was not.

“Don’t come any closer.” She said, tightening her hold around her katana’s hilt. “I won’t hesitate.”

“To do what, kill me?” He laughed as he took the first step, and Blake seethed when she realized how powerless she was against it. “You’re really out here playing cops and robbers, my love?” He asked, walking closer until she could see the ugly expression on his face. “You really thought you could outrun me.”

This wasn’t a ghost.

His face was older, his hair a little shorter, and his eyes pinned her down and made her feel cold in a way the real Adam Taurus could. Blake staggered back, her breath coming in shallow gasps, the man suffocating her with his presence. She kept her katana still in the air, its curved blade trembling but sure. 

“You knew I would catch up to you eventually, Blake, _but_ \-- ” 

Adam pointed above his head. She hesitated, not sure if she should risk getting distracted, until she noticed the holo-projector hovering above them. 

It blinked at her, its optics registering her every movement and her smallest response. Blake had to keep herself from shrinking away from its focus, her shoulders tipping up in a mock attempt to look fearless. 

“Not today. You’re safe from me, for now.” He said

Blake thrust her katana through his chest -- not to pierce but to prod the surface image. She watched it pass through, the blade skating over the edge of his tie, his projection distorting like a warped color spectrum from a television screen. 

She lowered her katana. “What is this?”

His face broke into a grin. A stranger might call it handsome, but Blake knew better. There was no warmth in Adam’s eyes as he studied her for the first time in almost a year. No expression of relief nor joy, not that she expected him to betray his emotions so easily. Adam Taurus was the youngest leader of the White Fang Syndicate since Sienna Khan’s death a few months ago, but despite his age, his every movement betrayed years of experience in the shadows. Calculated and methodical. Even knowing this was just a coded reflection of him, he still kept her on edge - cutting into her, leaving her with the sensation of his breath prickling on her skin.

It was like reliving a memory fragment after memory fragment after memory fragment.

“I just wanted to talk.” He said.

“Bull.” Blake held her katana up higher, her eyes darting around the rooftops surrounding the alleyway, and back to his blinking holo-projector. “You’ve chased me across Remnant. Found me in Harlem’s World, and now this? What do you want, Adam? I know you’re not here to say hello, and I sure as hell know you’re not here to make peace.”

“What if I am?” He reached out with a hand, and suddenly he was close enough to touch her face. Blake flinched, jerking away from his outstretched fingers. She watched him work the muscles of his jaw, providing her the smallest glimpse of his rage simmering underneath. “You keep hurting me, my love.”

“Don’t call me that.” 

“After so many years together, you’re still going to throw our memories away?”

“Stop.”

“You left me, Blake.”

Blake lifted her katana higher, pointing the tip at the projector. 

“I wouldn’t destroy this projector if I were you.” He wagged a finger in her direction. “Not unless you want to hear an offer I know you can’t refuse.”

“At this point, I don’t trust any of your promises.” Blake said. “Hell, for all I know, you’re really here and this _thing_ is just for show.”

“You’re letting your emotions get to you again.” Adam’s image flickered and looked out into the city, from the narrow mouth of the alleyway, allowing a moment of silence to pass between them. 

“If I really wanted to,” He said. “I would have had you on your knees ten minutes ago. But here we are.” 

She could have left.

She should have left Vytal City days ago.

She should have called Robyn up and told her she had a lead against the Mizumoto Clan. Gotten to the nearest needecasting station and booked it out of Latimer without another word. She could be in another off world city by now, planting temporary roots there, like she had so many times before -- run, rinse and repeat.

“I would have found you again, Blake,” He said. His mind always with her. Always a step ahead. The smile on his face was sharp, offering her no chance to negotiate with her soul on the line. “No matter where you go. No matter what you do, or what sleeve you’re in? I will always be one step ahead of you. Waiting.” 

It would have been suicide to lower her katana, but she felt her strength drain from her body. A heaviness twining around her spine, keeping her still and reticient, just like he always wanted her to be. She hated it. Hated everything about this. Her entire body seethed, and she hated how her legs refused to _move_.

“I -- “

“I’m here to make a deal.” It wasn’t a suggestion. Adam surrounded her with his presence, circling Blake like a predator, as if he could physically hurt her. As if he were here and not a literal phantom speaking through audio. “If you do something for me,” He said. Blake held her breath.

“I promise I’ll set you free.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading everyone! :) I appreciate it. Please stay safe!


End file.
